Rest and Work and Rest and Work and Rest and...

I'm really tired. Well, I was this past Sunday. Most people describe me as an extrovert, and this past Sunday I didn't want to talk to anybody. I just wanted to be left alone. I put on these really nice clothes, a bright yellow shirt, to look really nice, but that's not how I felt at all. Blaaaa. And my job consists of talking to lots and lots and lots of people. And for the most part, I'm really good at it and enjoy it. That's pretty much what my work is all about, connecting to people and I did not want to do that in the least bit. I was dreading having another conversation. I actually feel much better today, and I think it's because I got sleep. Eight hours actually, two nights in a row! It's amazing, and I highly recommend it! So, how did this highly extroverted person who loves people and loves having conversations and spending time doing this with others reach such a place where he hated himself and hated the thought of showing up for a church lunch?

I started working out in 2nd grade. I was already extremely active, but I had sisters who had discovered the joys of running and my dad had just gotten a weight set. So I was surrounded by people who loved working out. I would go on runs with my sisters and "lift" weights with my dad (I mostly just roller bladed around in the basement while my dad got jacked). I quickly discovered that if you work out and train for something you got better at it...not to mention I wanted to have six pack abs, in 2nd grade. So we had this thing called the Presidential Fitness Challenge at school with various tests of flexibility and strength and speed and endurance. The boys, and some of the more athletic/tomboyish girls, got really fired up about this every year! So I took what I was observing and put it to the test, I started training for the challenges. I started running up and down our 1/2 mile long lane with a wheel barrow, I started doing sit ups and push ups, and I began, intentionally being as active as possible, jumping and leaping whenever I had an opportunity, and began sprinting whenever I got the chance. This resulted in me crushing everyone in the challenges (except the V sit and reach, which caused me to get a red patch and not a blue nearly every year!).So, I developed this philosophy of work and fitness, that if you want to get better at something you just do it a lot and the more you do it the better you get at it. And for the most part this was true.

This philosophy has worked it's way into my spiritual life and in the very spiritual work I do. I'm good at having conversations with people, it's yielded some results, so why not do it more! Have more conversations, sleep less, meet more people! GO! GO! GO! And part of this is reality. I've been in the process of replanting an InterVarsity Chapter that experienced a really serious death in 2006. It was ugly. So a lot of what has been required of me is to meet lots of people, share the vision, and invite other into the vision. This is a lot of work and takes a lot of time and is very consuming. So why not do more of it! I've also been a part of a team of people who've been planting a church, and this too, is consuming. And the work is awesome. But I've tried doing the same things I tried doing when I was a little kid. My knee jerk reaction to any situation when things get hard is to just do more of what I'm good at. I'm good at interacting with others, so just do it more! I'm good at training and working out, so just do it more.

(There's also a lot of other things tied up in this, what gives me value and how I view myself, which I won't go into now, maybe another day)

This philosophy of life really produce some amazing things. In High School I was the Long Jump champion at the Sate meet (I won't tell you what state, but it's the smallest state in the USA, but hey, I still won!), I broke tons of records at my school in Track and Field, and I was on pace to break a lot of records in the state for football. This all changed in college.

In College, you are competing at a whole new level. Our work outs became much more focused. We had detailed programs we were required to follow in Football and in T&F. But I still did more working out on top of that, because I wanted to be the best. And I still had that little kid mentality of running and jumping whenever I got the chance not to mention I studied Theatre and Dance, so I was almost constantly intensely moving.

My Freshman year of College, after one meet, where I had competed in 6 events, I decided it would be a great idea to max out on squats. I had competed poorly and so I needed to work harder to get better. So, I was still feeling pretty warm, got off the bus and went into the weight room by myself. There's a huge window in front of the squat rack and when my coach walked by, he saw me and yelled in, "You need to rest." And I just thought to myself, I need to get better. So I began squatting like a machine, repping it out, feeling the burn, yelling, sweating, and then I ran to the bathroom and puked my guts out and crapped out an intestine (not really) and fell down very sick. I ended up in the health center that night with a temperature of 104. Sometimes I think God struck me down to protect me. I had carried this philosophy too far.

I think what strikes me the most about this story is my coach yelling in through the window, "You need to rest." A year and a half later a new coach was hired and he didn't just yell through the window, he forced us to rest. Rest was built into the work out. We had days where we would be running intensely one minute and not moving the next. Rest was not something you did in your spare time but it was something worthy of your time right now. And it wasn't a waste of time, but was necessary to make you a better athlete. Rest was just as significant as the running, as the lifting, as the jumping. Rest was precious. Rest was all important. If you didn't rest he didn't want you to practice because you were wasting his time and your time, because with out it, you couldn't practice to your full potential, and over the course of a semester, with out adequate, intentional rest, you would be having some pretty crappy practices and competing at a very low level. I started having better practices and better more consistent performances on competition days. This coach blew my mind when it came to thinking about rest.

I think God does this in our lives. He doesn't just yell through a window, "Hey you need to rest," but actually structures in rest to our lives and teaches us how to rest. I think this is what the Sabbath is all about, and what day time and night time are all about. The day to work, the night to rest. These natural rhythms of work and rest and work and rest and work and rest. I have not been resting lately. But I need to rest. And I'm not talking about staying up late watching movies or checking my email kind of rest. But really good, 8 solid hours of sleep kind of rest. Rest when I have my meals where I'm focused on eating and enjoying the food go into my mouth and onto my tongue and chomped up by my teeth, sliding down my throat, filling my tummy, and not hovering intensely over my computer freaking out about my next task or next person to contact while I'm eating dinner.

Also, there's a comfort in knowing that my rest is significant because I can rest fully in God. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that people who believe in God sleep soundly eight hours every night or don't stay up late watching movies or don't have late night family fun nights or don't stay up worrying about their children, i don't think that's the case at all. But there's a supernatural rest that can happen when we go to God. Often times, Jesus would take the guys he was training and developing on how to live life and to train and develop others to do it, away for a bit. Sometimes in the midst of some really crazy stuff, where it seemingly doesn't make sense to rest. One time in particular, Jesus is in the midst of healing all kinds of people with diseases and demons, and he just pulls away to a desolate place, to be alone, and to pray, with not all of the work finished. He goes away to seek God, and to rest. Later he says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." So not only does our work make us tired, but life does that to us. And Jesus promises us that if we go to him we will find rest and it has something to do with him teaching us about the way things are and training us how to live.

There's a conclusion in here somewhere. I think it's to have a rhythm of work and rest day to day so you don't hate life (or for me hate doing the thing I love to do) and to ultimately go to Jesus if you're soul is tired and weary and you'll find rest there.